Bullet to the Chest – Fading Fear and Healing Old Wounds

To all my followers waiting to hear my Dear Child post’s conclusion, here it is.

For all those new to the story, a click back to Last E-mail will get you up to speed on the below content, and understand how I began fading fear and healing old wounds.

Dear Child,

3 Months Post Surgery
Burning Process Begins

2011 begins in heartache. After you lose the man you believe to be the only man for you,  January also includes rush surgery due to a staff infection spreading over your chest and heart. Surgeons take 120 ml of puss (equivalent to ½ cup) out of your chest, leaving a hole the size of a cricket ball (or baseball) over your heart. You brave a smile for your friends — the first faces you see upon waking from anesthesia.

The next three months are filled with treks to the post surgery ward of St. Vincent’s hospital every other day before work. Mornings include sitting in a line behind people with much worse wounds, some with severe burns and disfigured limbs. Seeing this makes you appreciate life and health. 

Nurses clean, stuff, and bandage the hole in your chest, they show no mercy as they perform their duties on your open flesh. During the final healing stages they’ll burn excess flesh off to allow “normal” healing. A painful reminder of the sadness you feel every day. You literally have a hole in your chest representing the hole you feel in your heart.

You’re not ready to let go. Your dreams will get you through. 

Your 2011 new years resolution, to ensure everyone important in your life knew how much you cared and appreciated them. After your surgery, this notion could not be more important to accomplish. During the hard times, you realized how strong your connections where in a country half way around the world from your homeland. You witness a family sprout, and decide to celebrate.

So your 25th turns into a celebration for your friends and family, all those who make you smile, especially for those who kept you happy in a very unhappy situation. You (with the help of your awesomely handsome A Series of Fortunate Events owner, Christopher McLaren) create a space for everyone to dance on the red carpet like stars– well pink carpet I should say. A cocktail style party, set with lights, hanging photos, umbrella cocktails, and large open space on your 3rd floor balcony of your Sydney apartment…oh ya, and it’s open bar!

Grad School Group
Representing Canada, US, Russia, Germany, India, Switzerland, Norway, and the Netherlands

You’re happy, refreshed, and sharing incredible moments with close friends and family.

Sydney Media Clan
Matt Young, Christopher McLaren and Me

Oh and as an added bonus, your fantastic group of grad school friends gave you a helicopter tour of Sydney!

Enjoy a couple beauties below…

The next year will bring many ups and downs, as you say “till next time” to your job, home and family in Australia, journey back to the other side of the world, stopping on Australia’s sunny west coast, Indonesia and later Central and South America, until you’re finally settled on the east coast. Here, you finally begin to fade fear and heal old wounds. You will begin again, and create freedom in your life –mind, body and soul.

So don’t cry in the corner dear child, your dreams do come true. You just have to remember it’s Ok to let go. You’ll discover more and you will flourish into a strong, beautifully intelligent butterfly that has families and knowledge spanning the globe. You are not alone, you are not trapped –you are free.

First picture in 3 months without a bandage
Happy 25th!

Dear Readers,

Here’s what I want you to get out of my story spanning 3 blog posts — the art of letting go. Obtaining the ability to allow yourself to be completely free — mind, body and soul. I mean real FREEDOM! Ensuring fear is not driving action. Not so easy in today’s world of deadlines, alarms, bills and competition, which sometimes feels like an endless mountain of obstacles and restraints.

I must admit, my journey to freedom is one that will encompass life long learning, as most things in life. But it was only a couple weeks ago, when I received the Last Email, that I was able to finally begin to let go and allow myself to discover new possibilities and new ways of thinking. I let go of the idea that I was in love and that there could only be one man for me, I let go of childhood traumas and promises, I let go of past mistakes and heartaches, I let go of a life that I no longer lived. I let go of everything I was holding onto in fear of losing.

An anvil was lifted off my shoulders, and a funny thing happened, my mind was more clear and my breath more stable. I began to open to new exciting adventures, to a realization that I was not losing the past but creating a future and cementing a lifestyle that will always allow me to be free…

But for all this to occur, I had to go through some things –a lot of things. But what I want you, the reader, to understand and embody is that sometimes trauma and heartache leads us to freedom and new discoveries, new and better paths.

Never stop believing you’ll get there and never stop dreaming…

Post Surgery
Anesthesia is still kicking

Remember to click back to Last Email and Dear Child to read the full story.

Don’t forget to follow along as I share my thoughts and give tips on freeing the mind, body and soul from past wounds to create a life without restraints or boundaries, but one that unfolds unlimited possibilities.

“The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.”
― Mark Twain

Dear Child

Dear Child,

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through. 

I know who you are, and I know why you cry in the corner. You’re more sensitive than the rest, and therefore more perceptive. You’re 7 years old, and feel a great sense of abandonment and loneliness. You’re anxious and scared a lot of the time. You feel there is no one who truly understands you, you feel there will be no one to care for you and love you. Your mom is sick and sleeps a lot, your father tells you he has a hole in his heart, your cousins live far away, your best friend stops inviting you to sleepovers because you keep getting sick on Fridays (FYI you’re going to throw up while saying the pledge of allegiance this year) and your sister…she’s the one you yearn to be close with, but is the one who causes your tears to fall the hardest.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 11 this year, the past 4 years have been rough. 3 years ago numerous doctors studied you, and investigated why you were the way you were. Why were you getting sick? They labeled you with an “anxiety disorder” and put you on medication to fix your “problem”. This pill makes you gain weight and feel out of control. You get tortured at school and belittled at home and become angry. This anger brought on more doctors and more pills and gave you more side effects. Things will start to spiral as your environment becomes more and more unpredictable. You will suffer from depression and the medication you’re prescribed will cause you to develop Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), as a side effect to taking a daily dose. You will start to suffer in school.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 13 this year, you’re still in pain. A part of you wishes you could end it all, but all of you understands’ that you could never cause pain to your family. You believe in something greater, you believe you will get through. You know you love to make people happy, and smile, but you just can’t smile yourself. You try to fix your family, you want stability and security, but you have none. You try to repair what’s broken but you can’t.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 15 this year, this will be the year your life changes, your perception of reality rocked. You will witness the end of your parents’ marriage. You will scream and beg your sister to take you with her before she runs out the door and drives away without you. She will leave you. You’re alone and forced to watch your mother tell your father she has proof of his 15-year affair. You watch your father sob for the first time ever and you make a promise to yourself that day, a promise you hold onto for 10 years.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 20 years old, and you’ve found your groove. Four years ago you left home to start fresh. You left for a new environment. In the past 5 years you’ve become strong and independent, discovered and fell in love with Mexico, traveled Europe, saw a play in Shakespeare’s theatre, stood on a wall seen from the Moon, became a true athlete, learned the value of healthy food, made solid friendships, became a mentor and a leader and took yourself off all medications. You are finally able to say and believe that you love yourself and you are truly confident in your beauty, strength, heart and mind. A year later, you will be confident enough to stand in front of a college psychology class and read a paper you wrote which shares your biggest fear (or so you think)– an inability to trust and feel safe with a man, a fear you’ll never open enough to receive love. You read this allowed to 30 strangers, and as you read the words you’re not sure how the past will affect your future, but you’re fearful.

It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

You’re 24 years old, you live in Sydney, Australia with your college roommate, have a spectacular job you couldn’t have dreamed of a possibility having before moving, and a supportive family network who knows your heart. You are in grad school and join the Global Leadership Program. You attend a seminar. You walk in and sit next to a man who will facilitate a true and needed change within you. It will take two more years for this change to come to fruition, but it will come and you will be better for it. You will travel to Turkey, and start to feel for another, and open up. He’s the first you meet of your kind. His heart is big and mind strong. You will enter into your first real relationship.

January 2011 will bring in the New Year with heartache. Your relationship with this man will end and you will feel horrible. You will feel it is your fault. You didn’t know how to believe in love. You weren’t ready. You didn’t understand what it was like to be cared for, you pushed feelings away. You got scared, you felt trapped, you felt abandoned, you crumbled, you spiraled and you became someone you’re not to push someone you cared about away. You didn’t believe. And most of all, you held onto a promise you made almost 10 years before…

 It’s ok, you are not alone. Your dreams will get you through.

Conclusion is on its way…

Last e-mail

Dear followers and likers,

Forgive me for I have sinned, it has been almost 2 weeks (or longer) since my last blog post. To make up for the lack of action, I have quite the make up posts for you. These next 3 should keep you on your toes for awhile. Here is the full story,  a one sided love story…

“I honestly don’t think we’ll get back together, ever.”

If you haven’t been following along with, “about me” and “relationship dont’s” then you’ll need to click back, but if you have, read on…

This came in an e-mail entitled “Last e-mail” and of course was not the answer I wanted, but it was the answer I needed to hear. And for that I’m so grateful to him for sharing his thoughts and feelings. I can now move on. But to fully and completely leave this situation on a positive note and to understand why this man was, and will always be remembered as, a great man and an important part of my growth to become a better human being, I have to soothe the child within me that’s yearning to be heard. She needs to hear these words from the lady she’s become…

Dear Child…